OrganiCafeXperience & Teadot

Yesterday was my wife and I’s 1st anniversary.  It was sort of a shame that she had to work, but we still tried to make the most of the evening by having a nice dinner.  We went to the bottom floor of Century Square Mall to OrganiCafeXperience.  She didn’t really know where we were going.  She loves the place, but it’s a bit pricey so we don’t go often and haven’t been there in about 7 months or so.  I think she assumed I wanted to get something from the pet store down there, but then I just stopped and shuffled her into the waiting area to be seated.  She had a great smile on her face!

I’m sure you can tell from the name of the place, but OrganiCafeXperience is an organic foods restaurant.  Like I said before, it’s a bit pricey but the food is very much worth it.  After eating at this place, I wonder if all food would taste as good if it were grown naturally, without chemicals.  Most organic foods I’ve eaten do have a cleaner, richer taste to them, but anything organic comes with a premium cost, so it’s more of a treat than a norm for us, and for our families.

We sat down and took some time to browse through the menu. We decided to start with an appetizer, the Wild Mushroom Soup, along with garlic bread, which you can see I couldn’t wait to take a bite out of. The soup is very creamy and has small and large pieces of button and shitake mushrooms in it. The taste is really rich and I could see myself making a lunch out of just one big bowl of it. The garlic bread was icing on the cake. It was crispy and moist at the same time and was made with real butter and chopped garlic. I don’t know how they do it. I always had to cheat and use some garlic powder to get my garlic bread to taste anywhere near as good as this was. Our bowls of soup didn’t last long! We devoured them!

After that, it was time to move on to the main courses.  I chose a beef tenderloin dish and my wife chose a dish with lamb.  The beef tenderloin dish was delicious.  The two pieces of meat came on a bed of noodles with a brown sauce and was topped by two grilled tomatoes and a fluff of alfalfa.  One thing I love about the food here, and that’s maybe common with organic food, is that I could taste all of the different ingredients.  The alfalfa was crisp and vibrant.  The beef tasted great.  The broccoli was crunchy and fresh.  Even the noodles had their own distinct, enjoyable taste.  Plus, there were bits of ham mixed in with the pasta that added to the flavor.  I cleaned my plate.  Best of all, the portion was just the right size.  Even after clearing my plate entirely, I felt full but not stuffed.  I tried some of my wife’s lamb, but she was enjoying it so much that I didn’t take much.  In exchange I offered her some of the beef from my plate.  She said it was delicious.

The downsides to this restaurant is that the location isn’t that great.  The restaurant is separated into two areas.  There’s the preparation area and the storefront which is situated in a storefront along the wall.  Then there’s the seating area which is a separate, sectioned off area along the escalator that leads down into the lower level.  It’s not great ambiance, but the food makes up for it.  Also, the drinks are nothing to get excited about.  We actually didn’t order any drinks this time, because the first time we ate there they weren’t only unimpressive, but rather bad.

So, after dinner, we moved on to Teadot in Tampines 1 mall to enjoy the relaxing atmosphere of a cafe and sip on… ya, some tea!  I had a Royal Earl Grey Tea Latte, and my wife had a drink called Iced Dragon’s Brew.  It was made with oolong tea and some citrus I think.  I’ll have to go over the menu again.  I fully intend to go back.  It’s one of my favorite hang-outs for beating the heat.

We sat at Teadot for about 40 minutes, sipping our tea and using the free wi-fi.  Then we wandered around and did a little window shopping.  It wasn’t long before 10 PM came around and the mall was closing up, so we headed home.

Our 1st anniversary evening was nothing extravagant, but it was tasty, and we had fun!  We’ll be following up on our celebrations this weekend at Sentosa Island, where we plan on riding the luge and checking out Underwater World.  Expect photos!